Fish skeleton

Barring global thermo nuclear war or total collapse of the world economy (neither of which are that unlikely I guess) I am never likely to commune with nature to the point that I am obliged to hunt and prepare the food that I eat. Mr Tesco does more than an adequate job of that thank you very much. But I did buy some mackerel the other day that actually still looked like what it did when it was alive. Except it didn't have a head. I cooked it and on opening it I was actually shocked to find it had a skeleton inside. My fish fingers never had mini fish phalanges or carp carpels. I had experienced bones of course but these were arranged randomly and discretely so as to inflict damage on all those eating with knives and forks rather than tweezers and scalpel. At my age I realise that this is probably a bit embarrassing but I still wanted to share my surprise. I even took a photo of it as a memento. The fish was nice.

Fishcakes

It's amazing really. I thought I knew what a fishcake was. Dahn Sarf they are small, vaguely fishy round things that you have when you're in a hurry at the chip shop and not really that hungry. They're pretty much a round fish finger like these ones:

I saw some massive round things in a chip shop in my bit of Yorkshire the other day and was surprised to discover that they were also fishcakes. These ones are two slabs of battered potato with a think chunk of real fish inside the spuds (not fish nipples and arses mixed with sawdust like the southern version). They're a meal in their own right and about the same price. First rate stuff. If I ever have to draw up a list of blessings of life in the north, this will be near the top. they look a bit like this though this is a crap picture and doesn't really give you an idea of scale:

You really couldn't eat two of the things- the plate in this picture must be huge. Those aren't peas either; they're Brussels sprouts. Funnily enough, my friend sent me a fishcake joke the day after I enjoyed my fishcake epiphany:

A man walks into a shop with a haddock slung over his shoulder.
"Have you got any fishcakes, mate?" he asks the shopkeeper.
"Sorry, all out of fishcakes today," he replies.
Looking apologetically at the haddock on his shoulder, the man says: "Oh, shame, it's his birthday today."

Response to question: Local chip shop in Bradford. Remind me and I'll get you some, anonymous